This is a little insight into the way I often arrive at a new song composition.

Last night I was playing the piano, just improvising and following where the chords took me rather than performing something familiar. As often happens, I found myself jamming for a while on a new idea, and something I didn't want to forget.

Af this point unusually switch to my synth workstation to quickly record the idea before it's lost, then return to the piano to keep playing and seeing where it takes me.

This process is quite regular for me. However it's not so often that I actually listen back over all those recorded "bits and pieces" to see what I've come up with over time. When I do though it is usually the basis for a new composition. i.e. listening back over many song snippets or ideas, I start to find ways to string them together - sometimes even coming up with a whole new song idea in the process of trying to make one idea transition into another.

And then there are the "other" ideas, the ones that sit there for a long time and may never go anywhere. I've heard these referred to as the "riff graveyard" - a place where song ideas go when there seems to be no life in them.

Does this sound familiar to you? Do you sometimes have a similar approach to song composition?